696 CHRONIC DISEASES OF THE LIVER. 



Causes, etc. — In the horse, the agents in operation to pro- 

 duce this fibroid hypertrophy, or chronic inflammation of the 

 liver, are not well made out, any more than are the symptoms 

 by which its existence may be diagnosed. 



Although I have found it present in aged animals which 

 have succumbed to the last of several attacks of influenza, I 

 cannot believe that, as a rule, its appearance bears any close 

 relation to such fever, or we would hear more of it. I am 

 rather disposed to view it as largely dependent upon rej^eated 

 attacks of congestive or inflammator}^ action, having a special 

 geminative action on the interlobular connective-tissue, which, 

 steadily proliferating and consolidating, tends by direct pres- 

 sure to act upon both the vascular supply and the free dis- 

 charge of bile. The healthy condition of the secreting lobule- 

 cell is at the same time interfered with alike by direct pressure 

 as by interference with its source of nutrition. 



The hypothesis that the true causes are rather to be regarded 

 as the existence of peculiar forms of anosmia, the result of a 

 thoroughly defective and insufiicient diet, are, though not con- 

 trary to certain experiences, less capable of explaining the 

 state satisfactorily than the occurrence of the conditions just 

 referred to. Slow interstitial inflammatory action, extending 

 into the liver-structure, resulting in exudation between the 

 lobules, and by its organization and contraction pressing upon 

 the comjionent textures of the liver, is easily understood as- 

 operating in causing destruction of their nutrition. 



Many cases of anosmia with ascites, in young horses, which 

 have i:)roved fatal, have, on examination after death, shown 

 well-marked cirrhosis of the liver, to which, as the most likely 

 organic change, the abdominal dropsy and general animated 

 condition seemed very closely linked. But as these have 

 been met with not only where the food-supply was un- 

 doubtedly deficient and of bad quality, but also where all this, 

 could not be said, the conclusion that the defective food-supply 

 alone was the original factor scarcely seemed substantiated. 



Symptoms. — These chiefly result from the interference with 

 certain functions consequent upon particular tcxtural altera- 

 tions of hepatic structures. 1. There are those Avhicli follow 

 the arrest of the free circulation in the viscera of the abdomen 

 consequent on the impeded liver-circulation, and the diffi- 



